Caroline Neville Pearre

(April 15, 1831 – September 23, 1910)

Sister of John Henry Neville (2^nd faculty member at Eureka College); missionary enthusiast

Caroline Neville was born near Clarksville, Tennessee, but moved with her pioneer family to Mackinaw, Illinois, in the year of her birth. When Caroline was fourteen years old her mother died, but her father made sure that his daughter received a good education. Like her brother John Henry, Caroline eventually became a teacher, and during her lifetime she taught in Illinois, Iowa, California, Missouri, and Kentucky.

She attended Eureka College for a few years, but she did not graduate from the school. (Some accounts suggest that she may have also taught at Eureka College, but the sources do not all agree on this point.)

Sometime during the early 1860s, Caroline married Sterling Elwood Pearre (1825-1904) who was a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Pearres moved frequently as Rev. Pearre served different churches in Illinois and Iowa. As an educated young woman, Caroline longed to do more with her life than being known only as a minister’s wife. She became inspired by reading an article that a male author published in The Christian Monitor in 1874. The author stated: “You ask why it is that the sisters are doing so little for the church, . . . so long as nothing is expected of women, so long will the result be nothing.”

Caroline Neville Pearre prayed over this issue and determined a course of action that she decided to follow. Her dream, of establishing a missionary organization that would be led and operated by women, was a radical one for the times. Caroline later wrote “I promptly conferred with Bro [Thomas] Munnell, corresponding secretary of the General Missionary Convention. He responded at once, ‘This is a flame of the Lord’s kindling, and no man can extinguish it.’ I then began to write letters to our ladies, form whom I received favorable answers.”

The idea of women assuming a role of leadership within the church—and even the idea of women speaking publicly—were not concepts that were widely accepted by the social standards of 1874. What Caroline was proposing was revolutionary for its time but she remained undaunted by the potential fear of scorn and ridicule.

Caroline Neville Pearre first contacted friends in Eureka, Illinois, to begin organizing plans to create a woman’s missionary society. She contacted Elmira Jane Dickinson and Nancy Jane Ledgerwood Burgess to help found this new organization. On October 22, 1874, seventy-five women met in Cincinnati, Ohio, to establish the Christian Woman’s Board of Missions (CWBM). In time, it became one of the largest missionary societies in the world.

The work of Caroline Neville Pearre was appropriately eulogized by an observer who attended her funeral services in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1910. The observer noted that “And all about the group waiting on the hillside was a larger group—seventy-five thousand daughters, sisters, comrades, the world around—watching with hushed voices for the last glimpse of her who was leaving to them the heritage of service.”